As I said when we began this journey: grief is here or you wouldn’t be here.
You have suffered loss, and you’ve had your story rewritten, and you’ve inventoried your sorrows and struggles and measured the toll it’s taken on you. We’ve spent these past couple of weeks leaning into really difficult things, and I’m grateful for your presence and your investment in the messy places we’ve traveled into. Hopefully, you’ve found some comfort or had some clarity or discovered something you hadn’t realized or been reminded of something you forgot. Today, I want to ask you not to waste it by forgetting it.
The day my father died, I was at the grocery store buying bananas. I remember thinking to myself, “This is insane. Your dad just died. Why the hell are you buying bananas?” But we needed bananas. We’d be waking up for breakfast the next morning, and there wouldn’t be any bananas—so there I was. And lots of other stuff still needed doing too, so over the coming days, I would navigate parking lots, wait in restaurant lines, and sit on park benches, pushing back tears, fighting to stay upright, and in general always being seconds from a total, blubbering, room-clearing freak out. I wanted to wear a sign that said: I JUST LOST MY DAD. PLEASE GO EASY.
Unless anyone passing by looked deeply into my eyes or noticed the occasional break in my voice and thought enough to ask, it’s not like they’d have known what was happening inside me or around me. They wouldn’t have had any idea of the gaping sinkhole that had just opened up and swallowed the normal life of the guy next to them in the produce section. And while I didn’t want to physically wear my actual circumstances on my chest, it probably would have caused people around me to give me space or speak more softly or move more carefully—and it might have made the impossible, almost bearable.
As we think about the grieving that we carry inside us, as we reflect on how lonely the journey can be, and as we sit with the universal nature of loss, one of the greatest gifts grief can give us is the awareness of how much pain we are surrounded by. It can remind us of the trauma that we have proximity to and position us to be attentive to it. A few days after my father died, a good friend said to me, “I know you’re in pain right now. I know it’s all terrible, but I also know there’s something else for you here.” She said, “This experience is going to give you a layer of empathy you’ve never had before. You’re going to understand, and you're going to speak the language of grief more fluently, and you’ll be able to help people.” I didn’t want to hear that at the time, but she was right. It was true of me, and it’s true for you. Since you know how impossible it is to go through this life free from loss, you assume that everyone is mourning something.
Everyone around you: the people you share the grocery store line with, pass in traffic, sit next to at work, encounter on social media, and see across the kitchen table—they’re all experiencing the collateral damage of living. They are all grieving someone, missing someone, or worried about someone. Their marriages are crumbling, or their mortgage payment is late, or they’re waiting on their child’s test results, or they’re getting bananas five years after a death and still pushing back tears because the loss feels as real as it did that first day.
Every single human being you pass by today is fighting to find peace and to push back fear; to get through their daily tasks without breaking down in the grocery stores or in the carpool line or at the post office. Maybe they aren’t mourning the sudden, tragic passing of a parent, but wounded, exhausted people are everywhere, every day, stumbling all around us, and yet most of the time we’re fairly oblivious to them: Parents whose children are terminally ill. Couples in the middle of a divorce. People grieving the loss of loved ones and relationships. Kids being bullied at school. Teenagers who want to end their lives. People marking the anniversary of a death. Parents worried about their depressed teenager. Spouses whose partners are deployed in combat. Families with no idea how to keep the lights on. Single parents with little help and little sleep. Everyone is grieving and worried and fearful, and yet none of them wear the signs, none of them have labels, and none of them come with written warnings reading, I’m Struggling. BE KIND TO ME.
And since they don’t, it’s up to you and me to look more closely and more deeply at everyone around us: at work or at the gas station or in the produce section, and to never assume they aren’t all just hanging by a thread. Because most people are hanging by a thread—and our simple kindness can be that thread. One of the enduring truths I’ve discovered along this journey is that so often, my grief has negatively altered the way I interacted in the world. It’s made me irritable at times and at other times impatient. It’s caused me to withdraw, be quick to argue, or to be emotionally fragile. On many occasions, my grief has left me not at my best. I’ve wanted during those times to be known in my grieving. I’ve wanted to be given the benefit of the doubt that I was doing my best. Most human beings are not at their best but are doing their best. And here’s a secret: this is true of the people you love and live alongside and have trouble living in proximity to. It’s true of the people we don’t like. It’s true of the people we despise. It’s true of the people whose politics make our blood boil. Billions of people are all here together—and all not at their best.
That’s perhaps the greatest thing we can hold onto: no one is immune from the collateral damage of being human, as uncaring as they seem, as insensitive as we think they are, as callous as they may appear from the outside. They are doing their best. Part of good grieving is making other people’s grief central. We need to remind ourselves just how hard the hidden stories around us might be, and to approach each person as a delicate, breakable, invaluable treasure—and to handle them with care. As you make your way through the world today, people won’t be wearing signs to announce their mourning or to alert you to the attrition or to broadcast how terrified they are—but if you look with the right eyes, you’ll see the signs. There are grieving people all around you. Allow yourself to see them and to go easy.
Daily reflection:
"Perhaps they are not stars in the sky but rather openings where our loved ones shine down to let us know they are happy." – Unknown
From John:
When I lost my father, I wasn't prepared for the way it brought an existential/spiritual crisis. I know the story I'd be raised in about what happens after we die, but now in his absence, I was really pressed up against what I actually believed. While my old narrative no longer resonates quite the same, I haven't discarded spirituality or let go of aspirations of a reconnection with him beyond this place. There's just a lot more mystery to sit with.
Question: How have your experiences of loss solidified, reshaped, or completely shattered your religious/spiritual beliefs, or the way you view the idea of the soul or afterlife?
